fwiw, I did a little investigation. Total California offshore resources are estimated 4-6B bbls, mostly heavy oil. Contrast this with the 71B bbls estimated remaining in Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field (after almost 70 years of production!). There are dozens of fields in production throughout the world that are larger, many an order of magnitude larger, with better quality oil and far less risk.

(I can't tell if you're an expert in gas/oil, or not. I work with a lot of people from the gas/oil industry, so I'm not an expert per se, but I do read a lot about the industry).

The proven reserves for California are based on historic estimates, they haven't been thoroughly re-evaluated, and were based on previous extraction technologies (before side-drilling etc). The current position of my friends who do oil/gas analysis is that California proven reserve estimates are at least 1 order of magnitude below reality mainly because people aren't actively looking because of the moratorium.

That doesn't change the heavy vs light oil problem, though (probably). Heavy oil is harder to pump, harder to handle, and more costly to refine.

The point of all this is that California's offshore fields aren't all that special, and they aren't "easy oil". If they were, any environmentalist resistance would have been defeated long ago.

> with better quality oil and far less risk.

I know you said this in reference to Californian oil, but it also applies to Saudi oil. The number of dollars paid isn’t the only cost of using that oil.

Well, that's true of fossil fuel in general. There's a significant political and environmental cost, and those costs are both increasing. Oil fields belong to whomever owns the guns surrounding them, and the money goes to the kinds of social projects preferred by the kind of people who put guns around oil wells.

> while hoping there isn't another Deepwater Horizon.

At least install an effective blow-out protector.

Offshore drilling in an earthquake zone is not "easy oil". It's a disaster waiting to happen. I do agree that, if we are desperate, we will use it anyway. But I don't think that's good or healthy or responsible.

offshore drilling in an earthquake zone is an engineering job. it's done all the time, costs a bit more, but doesn't dramatically increase risk.